Now Pete's going to tell us what is calibration. Well, calibration Calibration is is a measurement of a particular device against a reference. Now that reference is um, normally traceable to a primary standard or to a national measurement. Laboratory And in doing that, we we.

That's that's a calibration, right? What we do is a calibration with a verification. So the Ver The calibration is a measurement of of something to a traceable standard, right? A verification is that same measurement. So you're doing a measurement of a device under test to a traceable standard to a set of specifications. That's a verification.

That's the difference. That's the difference. So in nowhere, did you mention adjustment there? No, No, we don't. It's now that may or may not be part of the the procedure.

Uh, sometimes you get devices that can't be adjusted. Yes, these devices have Cal features like like, um, an older power sensor for example doesn't have um an adjustment on it. It has a set of Cal factors that that you program into the meter. Got it? So we don't always adjust things.

In fact, it's better off if you're running a quality system. If you don't have to adjust something, you should because over time you're able to determine it's it's drift. It's drift and you constantly adjust that reference every time you get it in for calibration. If you constantly adjust it, you don't You're not not able to determine what its long-term drift is.

Or if you do adjust it, you should have performed a full verification first so that you know how much drifted. And then we do we as part of our verification performance. If if a box comes in um and fails verification and is adjusted, we will get will provide the before results and the after results. So where it's filed that way our customer can go wherever possible.

That way our customer can go back in time and look what the impact is on his measurements that he's done. Got it all right. The other: the other uh type of certificate you may get is um, certificate of conformance, right? Um, which is, uh, that typically comes shipped with a lot of products. They only they won't give you a calibration certificate, they'll give you a certificate of performance.

What does that mean? Well, it means at the time of manufacturer passed right? All right, So it might it might have been sitting on the shelf for a while. Um, whichever a manufactured, but it was calibrated marks at the manufactur factory. Industry-wise it's probably, probably, um, not broadly accepted as as as a companies I've worked out, it's not worth the paper it's written. That's pretty much it.

so many of customers. Now when they buy a new box, they buy an upfront. K yep and we encourage them to keep that K cycle going. It's um, the problem with a certificate of conformance is if you buy if you buy a product that comes with a certificate, conformance and you accept it and it comes from a manufacturer that will give you a three-year K cycle on it and a three-year warranty.

You're never actually going to test it until you get to the end of your warranty period. Yep, I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm just saying that that that you've got no data you've got no data on so you know your confidence level and we don't sell certainties. All right.

Um, we sell a confidence level most of most of our devices. Uh, and tests are done at a 95% confidence level. Statistically, that's two. Sigma right? right? Um, we can do it to to Uh for specialized Um requirements for customers.

Some customers would actually require U to to to get uh a better uncertainty level. Um, that just means we broad a uncertainties in many cases. Uh to give them a 99% confidence level. Um at at three Sigma, the confidence level being the okay, a 0.

At at a 95% confidence level, there's 95% chance that the results that you've been given are valid at which point at the at the day it was calibrated at the at the day it was calibrated right. This is why this is why recalibration is important if you're running a quality system where um You're A supplier or a manufacturer. Um, and you're doing product here and you're doing product there even if you get rid of your reference standard at the end of that time. All right and say yep, I'm not going to calibrate this reference standard anymore.

I'm going to throw it away. When you retire it, you still have to get a calibrated because you you've got to cover that period of time. Otherwise you've lost all that data. Well, you haven't lost all that data.

But if you you don't have a reference point, you don't have a reference point. So at start and finish, so it's only valid for two points in time. It's not actually a calibration isn't isn't valid. It doesn't give you a confidence level in the future until such time as you get another calibration done.

Got! And that gives you the calibration, Uh, confidence within two points in time. How do you some companies um, specify an initial, shorter uh period of calibration cycle Like 6 months or even 3 months to get some historical data on that particular instrument? Is that a common? That would be the Um? the customers call. Um ISO 7025 which is our industry standard for calibration actually specifies that the customer has to determine the Cal cycle right? Um, We in our offer in our terms and condition conditions. Um, we we that the customer accepts as part of part of the purchase order.

Uh, we make a statement in there that says we will calibrate it and install the manufacturer's recommended K cycle as the due date unless the customer asks for something else. Got it all right. So if if a product comes with a 24mth cal cycle um, and it's part of our TW and S, we will say we'll give it a 24mon K cycle unless the customer asks for something else. Some C customers are very tight on their their Quality Systems will shorten their K Cycles Yes, other customers will lengthen their K Cycles Um, and that's entirely up to the customer.

If you choose to extend your K cycle, that's great. You take a 12mon cal cycle and your quality system is mature enough and you got enough, um, confidence that you can extend it 3 years. That's up to your quality manager to to determine that. But you if you go from a 12- month Cal cycle to a three-year Cal cycle and you have a failure here at 3 years instead of looking back 12 months, you've now got to look back three years years.

So got it now. Make get something for nothing. Uh, take for example, the Agilant 3000 scope it originally. When it was released, it had a 12 recommended 12 month calibration cycle.

Then 12 months later Agilant went. We're confident in it. We're now going to recommend a 2year calibration cycle on this particular instrument. That's historically what's happened with a lot of instruments.

Um, the even the power meters, The power meters and power sensors. The U series Power meters. When they initially came out, some of the power meters had a 6mon cal. Right now, the Um for the Eer power Meters they Now have a 24 month K cycle on.

That's their recommended Is that because you built up more confidence product because as as A as A product's matured and everything else it's been determined to be more stable. Y And we can instead of recommending a six-month C cycle on those Motors then now A 24mth C cycle right? So you as a manufacturer, your Metrology department needs keeping track of new products introduced and that's part of the manufacturing division. Yeah, they they measure the stability over time of the of of the devices. and because it's in the customer's best interest from from a service perspective, it's in our best interest to recalibrate something every six months.

But it's not necessarily what the customer wants. and unfortunately, um, the uh, the reality of the situation is we're here to provide a service for a customer. Yeah, so can we dispel the myth that when you send out your multimeter for calibration somebody with a gray beard Strokes his Gray beard and tweaks the trim pots inside that's dispelled busted. Excellent mythbusted calibration is a science of measurement, not the tweaking of a bead.

Awesome! Thanks p No worries.